Egg industry

The egg industry is made up of establishments, which keep layer hens for egg production and associated activities (e.g. sorting, labelling and distribution). The eggs produced may be sold as table eggs or used in further food processing. A small proportion of fertile eggs from breeding flocks are hatched and reared to provide new flocks of layers.

Around the world there are about 5,000 million laying hens. The latest figures show that China has the largest flock (800 million), followed by the EU (271 million), the USA (270 million), Japan (152 million), India (123 million) and Mexico (103 million).